New Delhi, October 4, 2009
Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi at the interview by journalist Karan Thapar
Former Indian Test cricket captain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi has said that many young Indian cricketers lost out on their careers because they could not handle the quick money and fame that came their way and suggested that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) should teach them to handle fame and fortune properly.
"I think it's lot to do with outside pressure, especially media pressure or other kinds of temptations, when a player is not used to it. Especially money when you are very young and you are from a reasonably humble background and you suddenly end up with lots and lots of money. How do you deal with that kind of situation? It is not easy for young Indian cricketers," Pataudi told journalist Karan Thapar on the Devil's Advocate programme on CNN IBN.
The former Nawab of Pataudi said the celebrity status and the money they make was bound to affect the players' concentration and make them flustered.
M A K Pataudi at the interview
"They don't know what to do with the kind of attention and fame and fortune that they have suddenly gathered in a space of very short time, especially when they are not used to it," he said.
Pataudi said some players had handled such things very well and had not let the fame and fortune affect their ambition to continue to play well.
"It depends on the individual. You take the example of Sachin Tendulkar or Rahul Dravid or Kumble, they have remained just as committed when they first started as when they ended but there are one or two players whom I don't wish to mention who had been affected and lost out because of their lack of ability to adjust to their new fame and fortune," he said.
He said the quick money certainly confused and affected the players and distracted many of them. As a result, they do not remain as committed to the game to the extent they should be.
"When talking about earning fame and fortune quickly, the BCCI should also look at this angle and have a kind of symposium to teach people how to deal with these kind of fame and fortune which easily come as a reasonable surprise to them," he suggested.
He did not agree with the suggestion that there should be limits on the money the players make from the Indian Premier League or commercial contracts.
Karan Thapar interviewing M A K
Pataudi
"I don't think we can actually be judge of that. They should be allowed to make money as much as they like but they should also be guided...If the parents can't do it, if the school can't do it, then the BCCI will have to do it," he said.
Pataudi also pointed out that it was not money alone that was spoiling some of the Indian cricketers, recalling his own times. "No, I think fame where there was no money also spoilt Indian cricketers. But obviously the temptations are much more now than it was in my time," he said.
The combination of money and fame, however, was very difficult to deal with for most people, he said.
The former Indian captain also felt that the Indian people could be loss adoring of cricketers so quickly. Ultimately, he felt extraneous reasons such as these could not be blamed and the players concerned had to sort out such things for themselves, no matter how much pressure they were under.
Asked if television journalists needed to be much more thoughtful and careful about the language and adjectival terms they use to describe cricketers, Pataudi said, "The electronic media has to be not only in cricket but in several other means also."
He also agreed that the electronic media could be a bit more supportive of sports other than cricket. "I would like to see it. Certainly there is lots of talent in other sports in Indian and we like to see that developed also. Otherwise, it becomes totally lopsided," he said.
Asked about India's performance in the Champions Trophy tournament in South Africa, he said it was bad, in the sense that India had done well in Sri Lanka. "I think we should remember that the Sri Lankan wickets suited us. Also it was the spinners who got the wickets in Sri Lanka and they won't get wickets in South Africa," he said.
"I say it's bad in the sense that the bowlers didn't do well because they weren't in a position fit enough to do well. Not necessarily physically, but as bowlers because the wickets didn't suit," he said.
He also felt that there had to be a study about the fitness issue because a majority of the Indian cricketers were not physicallya gile or physically athletic.
"If you go back even 50 years from Vijay Merchant to Gavaskar to even Sachin and Rahul Dravid, you wouldn't say they would run a 100 yards in reasonably quick time. There are very few Indian players who are full of agility and quick movement in the field, and the catching has been poor. There are several reasons for this. When we learnt our cricket in the 60s, the facilities were not really that good," he said.
Pataudi said that, throughout the history of Indian cricket, fielding had been very poor. "That is because the people don't have grounds to learn fielding. We don't know how to dive; we don't know how to slide because we don't have ground where we can slide on," he pointed out.
Apart from fitness, he felt there also problems of commitment, temperament and attitude among the Indian players. "On several occasions, when I was playing, our body language wasn't aggressive or perhaps that positive as it should have been. So it's a bane that has been in Indian cricket for a long, long time," he said.
He said the wickets in South Africa were helpful to seam bowling and India did not have the seam bowlers to bowl well enough. He said the bowlers could at best be called medium-fast.
He said India did not produce enough fast bowlers because the wickets at home did not suit fast bowling, forcing most players to concentrate on batting or spin bowling.
"...if India wants to produce fast bowlers, I think it's the responsibility of the BCCI to produce the kind of wickets that would encourage people to bowl fast," he said. He said local associations also had to play a role in this regard.
On the whole, he did not find fault with Mahendra Singh Dhoni's captaincy. He captains take certain decisions and people could always sit back after the match and criticise him.
"I think the media tends to over praise far too quickly and then, of course, they have to bring them down. I have not been disappointed of his captaincy. I think he is still a good captain and I think he will become a better captain," he remarked.
Pataudi also felt that enough was not being done for junior cricketers, because they were the future.
"There is no point in coming into Test cricket at the age of 21-22 and still having your basic fundamentals wrong. Fundamentals like running between wickets or calling, keeping your eye on the ball when you are fielding or even throwing it at the right end. Unless we get those right before we enter, it's very difficult for the international coach to start you on the fundamentals. It's a waste of time. So, we have to organise our coaching and our facilities much better, at least at a level of 16 or even slightly earlier," he said.
"Instead of keeping their cool and keeping their eyes on the ball, you will see a lot of Indian cricketers getting flustered and often throwing the ball at the wrong end. They run badly between wickets. These are very basic things which one is supposed to know before you enter the international field," he said.
He agreed that some of the players who became international-level cricketers for India were "half- or three-quarter baked."
"Absolutely. This is the fault not only of the cricketers but also of the coaches," he said.
He did not agree that the T20 format had affected India's ability to play the 50 overs version of the game. "I don't think this is quite correct. It is obviously difficult to adjust to three forms of cricket by the same player, very few people can actually do it but they have to do it. I think India has done well in all aspects of these three games at times but not consistently enough to be thought of as a No.1 position," he said.
"I think it is training, mental training--the training that you should be 100 per cent committed throughout the 365 days in a year and that you have nothing else to do. This is the way professional cricket is now played. And the fact that you should get to the top and you must get to the top and that's the whole idea of playing," he said.
To a question about whether Dhoni and Harbhajan Singh were justified in not going to Rashtrapati Bhavan to receive their Padma Awards, he said it was difficult for him to answer because he was not sure whether they got enough time to go.
"If they had got enough warning, then I think it was ill mannered not to have gone," he added.
NNN
